He starts and turns to her. Matter? A half-smile stirs his lips, and he points to the engine without another word.
Mrs. Benham is frightened. She thinks to herself: "This constant worry over that thing is turning his head; he will lose his mind. Oh, John!" she cries, "if you would only come away and rest and give this up, if only for a little while! I—I—" and poor Mrs. Benham's voice breaks, and the tears rush to her eyes.
"Martha, Martha, you don't understand. My worry is all over,—all over. The thing is a success,—a success, Martha, and not a failure!"
"What—why—when I went out—"
"When you went out a while ago, I'd given it up, and I thought I'd say good-bye to it in a last run, and on that run I heard a new sound. Look here, Martha, do you see that link in the valve gearing? I thought I had taken every pains to suspend it properly. Well, it seems I hadn't. I suspended it in the usual way, and it worked in the usual way; but it turns out that wasn't the way to work with my new injector, and there is where the hitch was. Do you remember when I brought my hand down on the machine when we were talking? I must have displaced this delicate little bolt or pin that you see here, at that blow, and in that way put the link—it is what is called a shifting link—into the right position to work my injector combination. This little change of position makes everything clear as daylight, and I can put this little beauty into fine shape now; fasten the bolts and pins permanently instead of temporarily, for I don't need any more changes. It will do its double work of speed and fuel-saving every time; for see there!"—and the exultant builder pointed to some almost infinitesimal figures in two different portions of the engine. They were the registers that proved the result of this last triumphant run, and the complete success of his invention.
The tears were still in Mrs. Benham's eyes, but they were tears of joy. "It seems too good to be true," she faltered.
"And I thought the other thing—the failure—too bad to be true," he returned. Then smiling a little, "I shall name it 'Hope,'" he said.
"And it is Hope that will make our fortunes, after all; for this will make a fortune, won't it, John?" inquired Mrs. Benham, looking up into her husband's face eagerly. But he didn't hear her. His thoughts had gone back to that valve gearing, and the link that had been so happily put in place.
She touched his arm, and repeated her question.
"Fortune?" He turned from his loving contemplation of the thing that he had builded. It seemed almost human to him. "Fortune,—I don't know," he answered absently.